Whispers and Dreams
by AndBeAVillian
Summary: Alayne Stone is never alone during the day. But at night something calls to her.
1. Chapter 1

_Whispers and Dreams_

* * *

_Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness._

_- __Poppy Z. Brite_

* * *

She is silent but the door never is. The creak echoes, reverberating off the arches of the empty sept. She has oiled the hinges but the soft shriek of protesting metal will not be stilled. Just as the blackness of night is always darker, unforgivingly black here no matter how silver the moonlight may paint the Eyrie on a clear night like this.

_White and grey like it has been kissed by snow, like - _

Her braid swings across her back as she shoves the memory away with the door. Do the hinges truly scream or is it the sound of her twisting heart?

Alayne Stone has not been to those northern walls. Her heart does not ache and twist in her chest. She feels no pain. Grey and white mean nothing to her.

_I feel no pain. I feel no pain. _

Her lips repeat the mantra soundlessly. The wood door is hard and cold against her back as she leans against it, staring into the thick darkness barely held at bay by her pathetic guttering candle. She is alone here in the night, free of the bustle her days have become.

"Alayne Stone was raised in a motherhouse. She has never been north." Unseen arches catch the whisper, throwing her magnified words back at her in ugly refrain. The candle flickers with every echo.

She is never alone during the day. Between Sweetrobin's constant calls, her Father's lessons, and Randa's gossip her days are full. During the day it is enough.

Here in the thick blackness something is rotting but alive, calling out to her. Another life she can strangle down when the sun is bright and the glittering bustle of life distracts her.

At night Sansa Stark is never alone, not even in her mind.

_Belief and repetition. Believe your words and repeat them. A good lie will remain like the refrain to one of your songs Sweetling, a chorus remembered even when the rest of the song is forgotten..._

No lips utter Petyr Baelish's hissing whisper, but she feels the hot rush of minty breath caressing the shell of her ear. It is a lesson he repeats often, blue eyes flickering with disappointment. It should be comforting to have her Father's advice and guidance.

It should be.

Her breath mists the air in a small cloud, and she irrationally wonders if it is her soul slipping slowly away into the cold with every breath. If Sansa Stark is escaping into ice and Winter.

_Perhaps the pain will go with it. _

A sacrifice she could gladly make.

Her blue eyes are closed but she sees a beautiful golden haired boy smirking at her twisting heart, white hands slipping across her chest in an icy caress.

_Please let it be the wind. _

Her eyes are seldom closed long.

Her slippered feet are swift and silent, the only sound the eerie howl of the wind sweeping through the Vale. The walls are made for songs to the Seven, and they catch even the faint voice of the wind. Randa does not question her desire to be alone with her gods at night. Alayne was meant to be a septa, and she has precious little time during the day for devotion.

Randa would not expect to find her _here. _

The shrine she stands before has no other visitors. No intricate windows to leave colorful splashes of light on the floor during the day like the Maiden's shrine, no fragrant incense like the Mother's. The single tallow candle she lights on the high altar illuminates only dirty metal and a single low bench.

She has prayed in every shrine. In the Maiden's brightly colored light, in the Mother's heavy incense. She has lit candles on every altar and woken every night screaming anyway.

He is the only one she prays to now.

_You have them all - my family, my friends, Lady. Take good care of them Ser._

If she keeps her eyes low, the size almost right. If she does not see the plain helmet, the dull grey armor is the right color.

Sansa Stark is not quite surprised the Stranger seems to answer in the Hound's rasping tones.

_Fuck your Sers. _

When she prays to the Stranger she wakes moaning instead of screaming, the rasp of the Hound's laugh still echoing in her ears.

Every night she lights a candle on his high altar.

* * *

A/N: Haven't decided if this is a one-shot or not yet. Maybe there will be more.


	2. Chapter 2

_2_

* * *

So long as man is protected by madness - he functions - and flourishes.

- Emile M. Cioran

* * *

The heavy bar slides into place before the tears begin to fall. The Stranger's shrine is the only one with a door, designed to be barred from either side. Her tears fall on the wick and the single tallow candle will not light, sputtering and dying even as it catches. Alayne Stone screams and rages her grief, echoing inside Sansa before escaping in the silent stream of alien wetness down her face.

The candles lit and unlit are forgotten. Tully blue eyes stare uncomprehendingly at the moisture on her white hands as she catches Alayne's pain. How had these come from her eyes?

These are not hers.

Sansa Stark has no tears left to shed. She strangles down Alaynes ragged wails. Sound might alert others. It cannot be risked, not even behind thick doors.

_Tears are weapons. Such waste. _

Green eyes and gold hair hover at the fringes of her vision, the cold smile almost proud.

She catches the droplets with her fingers before reaching to pool them on the high altar. He will appreciate this offering. She is sure of it.

Sansa has lost count of the tries before wick finally flares to life, illuminating the dark stains across her dress. Red as any lifeblood. The acidic sour smell reminds her this is not blood, merely another proof of Father's increasing attention. The cold air slides through the ripped bodice held together by straining threads.

Alayne Stone rages afresh.

Sansa Stark lets another drop fall on the Stranger's high altar.

* * *

The serving girl had spilled wine on her white dress, drenching across the shoulder and down the sleeve while spraying her torso like a spurting wound. The hall went silent except for Sweetrobin's petulant demands for his favorite dessert.

Lord Baelish laughed at the girl's clumsiness but his eyes do not leave her splattered form, the pupils suddenly wide and dark. Sansa Stark knows enough to be afraid of those eyes. She holds Alayne tighter.

"Come Sweetling, you could catch your death from chill." His voice is light and concerned, the voice of a father as he holds out his hand to her.

Once out of the sight of the hall he takes the stairs, not the humble servant's corridor leading to her room.

His breath comes quicker than usual, his wide pupils darting down at her and then up again.

The thin wool dress and slip are plastered to her chest. The shiver down her spine is not from cold.

* * *

_Am I to blame? I bring treachery and death. _

She looks down to see a severed head with a long careworn face gone slack in death cradled in her cupped hands. The face is not accusing. She does not need it to be to feel the guilt, strong and tired where Alayne's grief is bright and angry.

"If I was a better daughter...a more dutiful one..." She is speaking for them both, for Alayne and Sansa, the echoing of the sept giving a duality to her voice. The same and not the same.

_Lord Eddard should have beaten the stupid out of you Little Bird. _She looks up to the Stranger's cavernous helmet, listening to the rasp of the Hound's harsh tones._ Baelish forgets more and more as the days go by. He forgets you are not his daughter and it makes no difference. You are too much your mother's daughter. _

The laughter echoing in the crypt is the grinding of metal against bone.

_Did you think all fathers were noble Little Bird?_

* * *

Struggling would be useless and she does not try. Her strength will not be enough to match him. Her pathetic strength has never been enough, not Sansa's in King's Landing and not Alayne's here. The mouth suckling hard against her neck is sloppy and wet, the hands grasping at her transparent bodice not careful.

Bile rises in her throat. Kisses and soft touches will not be enough tonight. Even Alayne's bastard bravery cannot hold the fear at bay. The fabric of her dress tears loudly in the silence of her Father's chambers. A hand grasps her chin roughly, jerking her head forward. Inside Alayne something cracks and grief wells out.

"Look at me Cat. _Look at me._" The final words are hissed at her through clenched teeth, the odd petulant note reminding her of Sweetrobin. The anger of a thwarted child. The fingers dig into her chin as a new sound rips through the air, making him shoot backward.

A wailing cry splits the silence, high and mournful in the fading pink of dusk. It raises the hair on her arms. A sound not heard in the Vale for lifetimes. A voice she would know anywhere.

_Lady._

The sound is close. So close it might be in the room with them. The two points seem to glitter like eyes in a dark suddenly black as pitch, just beyond the reaches of the suddenly blazing fire.

Lord Baelish's face is pale, a fine tremor in his fingers as he holds her at arm's length.

"We never had wolves before..." The whisper trails off as other canine howls raise to answer the call. She rips her wrists from his suddenly slack hands, running through the door to make good her escape.

Littlefinger's eyes remain fixed on the living darkness.

* * *

"Thank you." She doesn't add the Ser this time. Now she is old enough to know what he has rescued her from, the words aren't a fit offering. The acidic sourness of Dornish Red wafts up from her ruined dress and a faint smile curves her pale lips.

Dornish Red was a favorite of his.

The sept is drafty and cold as she undoes the laces of her rough dress, but she makes no move to cover herself as she lets the fabric drop to the ground. The slip is more difficult to peel off, the residue of wine greedily sticking to her white flesh. Sansa sets the ruins of her garments on the Stranger's high altar. She kneels on the thick mat, her legs slightly spread.

_This is an offering he will appreciate. _

Her smile grows as she feels a strong hand twist in her hair.

The laughter behind her ear is the grinding of metal on bone.

* * *

A/N: A bit of madness and a bit of something else. Is it too...fragmented? Please do take a moment and review, it is super appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: A huge thank you to all the lovely people who have stopped to review. I am very glad you're enjoying my ramblings, and do hope you enjoy this chapter as well!

Chapter 3

* * *

_I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost._

_― Jack Kerouac, On the Road_

* * *

"Alayne would have been brave enough."

The face is not her reflection. Sansa Stark had porcelain skin, fire-kissed hair of flaming auburn, and her wide Tully blue eyes sparkled with dreams. The face in the smooth silver surface of the small hand mirror belongs to someone harder, her skin a peasant's golden tan and dark hair with no shimmer. The blue of her eyes is still shockingly bright, viciously angry. The hand holding the mirror shakes with her rage.

_Life is not a song. _ The golden figure on the edge of her vision is smiling, hard and mirthless.

Sansa cannot push this face away, staring fixedly into hypnotically blue eyes of emotion bright and new. It's Father's fault Alayne rages, grief welling out with every lingering touch and wandering kiss. Lord Baelish talks much of Harry the Heir, but his words are wind.

Sansa is too much her mother's daughter. The gods are cruel, today as always.

_Or are they just? _If she looks down a severed head will stare back up at her, features slack in death. What punishment will be enough?

"Alayne is brave. _Bastard brave._ She would have gone." The words are an accusing hiss through teeth clenched tight. A dull ache begins in Sansa's jaw. Had her grief ever been so bright and brutal? Dimly she thinks of a little golden boy-king and a wall and a push-that-wasn't. Perhaps it had, she decides, but she can't remember feeling anything but this grey tired hollowness.

Sansa Stark closes tired eyes, empty as any painted doll. Her voice is a gentle whisper, the words spoken slow and careful into her dark room.

"I...didn't know...the songs never mentioned...I didn't understand...then." How young she had been, a girl still moon blood or no. So sheltered and hidden she hadn't understood the blunt wants of men, only the whitewashed tales sung by the bards of devotion and love of knights for ladies. The visceral brutality of the Hound was beyond her, just as Joffery's joyous sadism had been.

_Lord Eddard should have beaten the stupid out of you._

Her shoulders slump slightly. Blackwater. A lifetime ago, an offer had been made to a girl neither Sansa Stark nor Alayne Stone would recognize now. A girl whose Tully blue eyes sparkled with dreams.

"I was afraid, and so young...I could not have been what he wanted then." Another battle she had been poorly prepared for and lost, one more in a string of failure. Moon's blood was a poor judge of womanhood, little bleating lamb she was thrown to the lions and dogs.

"Alayne would have gone with him. She would have been everything he wanted. _Everything._" The raging blue eyes fall on the single tallow candle flickering on the small table. Sansa has never asked if his offer still stood, if he would keep her safe. The Hound – _the Stranger - _may help but he is no more savior now than he ever was.

She doesn't deserve salvation. The slack face in her lap is a testament.

Sansa will never completely shake fear, but Alayne is bastard-brave and the dagger's silver point is hard and sharp a hairsbreath from the white column of her throat.

"Alayne could still go." The dagger tip pierces the tender skin of her neck, a shallow cut trickling blood. Alayne's breathing is harsh and loud in the dark silence, blackness deepening by the moment. He is near. Always near.

_Growing wings Little Bird?_

The fear is instinctual, old as life itself. Not even Alayne's bravery can overwhelm it, even riding on the high of bright grief. The knife shakes wildly, small passes cutting deeper into her neck. Spilling rich red blood in offering.

Strange. Of the two of them Sansa Stark is not afraid, the terrified tremors wracking the slender pale body belong to Alayne. Only the living fear death she thinks, impassively meeting Alayne's wide panicked eyes in the small mirror. Sansa Stark is just one more lost girl, an already sacrificed piece in this game of thrones. One without the good sense to die quickly. How strange it is to not quake uncontrollably. To be untouchable. A single dream sparkles in her Tully blue eyes.

"Does your offer still stand my lord?" Her voice is the only strong light thing in a dark blacker than night, the tallow candle flickering pathetically.

The laughter echoing through her room is the grating of metal against bone. Somewhere in the night Lady howls long and mournful as a large hand settles over hers on the knife hilt, stilling Alayne's shudders.

_Do you know where the heart is Little Bird? _

Sansa Stark smiles with eyes alight with dreams.


End file.
